Hotel Nonna

What a week it's been.

I think every family has their bad years. For ours, it was 2014.

That year, it seemed like everything that could go wrong did go wrong. It was harrowing, exhausting, and ultimately brought us closer together as a family.

Simply put, it was a hellacious 365 days.

Recently, 2017 has started doing short little impressions of 2014. And while the impressions are accurate, they're not as cute as 2017 seems to think.

Appliances have broken, things have gone wrong in the house, family members have taken turns getting sick and recovering - it's been an experience.

(No joke, as I typed that line, Turk hurled on the floor ten feet to my left.)

This week, we had some work done in the house which required us to vacate for 24 hours. And by us, I mean everyone - humans AND cats.

Thankfully, Shelly's parents live in town, and were more than happy to put us up for the night.

The trick was though, that we had to actually get the cats there. Preferably alive.

Wednesday morning, we woke up early, wrangled them into their respective crates, and Shelly ran them out before work after taking the kids to school. I wasn't there for it, but I hear the ride was quite eventful.

Well, eventful and loud.

Apparently the cats meowed/yowled the entire way.


They REALLY hate those crates.





As a happy coincidence though, Wednesday was also the day that my friend Janie from work brought the personalized stress spinners she and her husband had 3D printed for us.

Perfect timing.

The evening was actually quite fun. We rented Hacksaw Ridge and watched it with Shelly's parents. We played "Pit", a card game our family loves. We even got the "Hotel Nonna" treatment, complete with personal packs of candy on everyone's pillows - everyone getting their favorite kinds.





The morning after, however, was a different story.

After the kids went off to school, Shelly and I started the process of shipping the cats home again.

In our infinite wisdom, we thought that maybe the cats didn't enjoy their trip out the first time because of the crates - and that if they were allowed to travel in the back seat that they would be much calmer about the idea.

We were wrong.

I took Turk and Jaxon's cat Batman in my car, while Shelly took Jade's cat Princess in hers.

I'll let you be the judge of how much calmer the non-crate trip was:

After that, the week was pretty easy.

Tahlequah had their yearly free day at the dump, so we loaded up Shelly's dad's truck with a garage full of things we had accumulated and then waited in line for an hour to dump it for free.







Seriously, there were SO many people taking their trash to the dump.








The kids got new bikes this week, so of course we had to take them out for a test ride.

I swear though, I remember riding bikes being much easier when I was a kid - and I'm not entirely referring to the fact that I'm pudgy now.

I think somewhere along the way, I forgot how exactly to shift a bike correctly. I can't ever find the right combination of numbers on the left/right sides of my handlebars, and it really makes the ride quite frustrating.

Going uphill is exhausting, and going downhill ends with my pedals doing nothing. I try to shift down when things get hard, like you would in a car - but damn if that doesn't feel counter-intuitive and make my legs feel like they're going to explode.

Inside, I swear I'm already 60. I find myself thinking "I should have just gone for my usual walk." every time I ride the dang thing.

That said, I do love my walks though.






In addition to a new bike this week, Jaxon also got a new mattress. And Jade (who we often joke exhibits "cat-like" behaviors) was fascinated by the huge empty box that it came in.


Unfortunately, my picture of Jade in-box turned out too blurry, so all I have to document the experience is a picture of Shelly messing with her.





Or, I've made up an elaborate story about Jade being transfixed by the box because secretly my wife is obsessed with box interiors and has to photograph them whenever the opportunity presents itself.

But no, if the two story options are Shelly being strange or Jade being strange - it's always going to be an easy guess.



The weekend ended things quite nicely.

We got a lot of work done in the yard on Saturday before the rain came in this morning, and I prepped my meals for the week - crock pot chicken chili with EXTRA tomatoes (the family doesn't like tomatoes in their chili, so when I make it for myself I get a little carried away).







This week has a couple of exciting events coming up. Monday I have my first Brazilian Jiu Jitsu class at a friend's house (his brother is a black belt and just moved here from Venezuela) - and Wednesday I have the podcast with We Are The Revelers.

I'm super eager for both.


The podcast will be a blast to record, because I hear the couple that does them is very funny - and the martial arts class will be awesome, because it's something I've wanted to do for a very long time, having two friends who already to BJJ, but live too far away for me to join them in their classes.

Admittedly, I will need to eat a little bit of humble pie for taking this class, though.

I've referred to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu as "karate wrestling" for some time now, trying to frustrate my friends. Now that I'm actually taking part myself, they'll probably have a few well-natured jokes to send back my way.

They better be well-natured jokes. I'm limber and have a low center of gravity.

I expect to take to these lessons like a fish to water.